Children, Crumpsall Workhouse, c.1897 (there are no photos of Sheffield workhouse inmates). Source: Manchester Archives
When Nellie was 19 she married an older widower John Pidgeon and they had three children. John was a table knife forger, and in 1909 he was admitted to the workhouse where he died a week later aged 46. In May of the same year the three children were admitted to the workhouse – Nellie was eight, Albert seven and Lily six. In December, their mother Nellie was also admitted.
The three children were sent to Fulwood Cottage Homes soon after their admission. These cottage homes had opened in 1905 and were described in the newspaper as a:
More enlightened policy calculated to have a good influence in the early training of the children … The idea of the Guardians is that the children shall be quite apart from workhouse influences, and participate in the joys of home life; that each home shall contain a happy family, under a foster mother.
These homes were a significant improvement on life in the workhouse: there was a better diet, the children did not wear a workhouse uniform, and they attended local schools. It was also expected that ‘gaining a knowledge in various trades will form an occupation in some of their hours of recreation’ with a view to placing the children into paid work after the workhouse, usually into domestic service or apprenticeships.
After a year in the cottage home, Albert got a place at the Charity School for Boys on East Parade. In 1915, Lily died at the age of 12 of a tubercular hip. She would have been in a lot of pain and walked with a limp. As the disease developed it could have led to shortening of the limb and restriction of movement. The younger Nellie stayed at the Fulwood Cottage Homes until she went into domestic service when she was 15.
Their mother Nellie was still in the workhouse in 1911, and it seems likely that she would have had seen little of her children as they were all living in separate places. She died in the workhouse eight years later aged forty of a cerebral haemorrhage and was buried in an unmarked public grave in the Cemetery. In total eight members of this family are in the Sheffield General Cemetery – John, both his wives, and five of his children.